The Fire That Took It All

Brut India

Hiralal and Hirakanya Bhanarkar tried to become parents for 10 long years. When finally, they had a baby girl, disaster struck where she was at Bhandara hospital. This is their tragic story of loss.

Transcript

00:00At around 2 a.m. on 9th January 2021, a fire broke out in Bhandara Hospital in Vidarbha

00:29Maharashtra. The fire gutted the Sikh Newborn Care Unit, its neonatal department, killing

00:36ten infants.

00:39Hiralal and Hirkanya Bhanarkar lost their three-day-old daughter in that fire. She had

00:44been the heart-warming result of a decade-long battle with infertility. Before this, they

00:50had lost four children to miscarriage and stillbirth.

00:54They agreed to speak to brute journalist Sagar Shah about that night and the many tragedies

00:58that had led them to the wrong place at the wrong time.

01:07This is Utgaon village, in Bhandara district, where the Bhanarkars work as farm labourers.

01:13Utgaon village, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

01:34Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

01:39Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

01:45Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

01:49Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

01:53Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

01:57Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,

02:30each loss took on them, the Banarkars wanted a child.

02:33They took out loans and invested the gargantuan sum

02:36of 30,000 rupees in fertility treatment.

02:39At 39 years old, Hirkanya was pregnant for the fifth time.

02:54A nurse following Hirkanya's case told us that given her age,

02:58the pregnancy was risky, life-threatening even.

03:28We tried to convince her to get an abortion and to give birth to a new baby.

03:40But she said, no, we will work hard, but we want a baby.

03:47Hirkanya's pregnancy was rife with complications.

03:50Her cervix had to be sewn shut to prevent another premature birth.

03:54She required complete bed rest, but her situation didn't allow it.

03:59At home, the Banarkars do not have a toilet,

04:02and she had to relieve herself in the fields.

04:05Her stitches tore twice on these long trips,

04:07and the second time, she went into labour two months early.

04:11Luckily, the child survived.

04:24But she required special medical attention as a preterm baby.

04:28And that was accessible at Bhandara Hospital.

04:39Just as the couple thought things were looking up,

04:42disaster struck.

04:59I had to call an ambulance and rush to the hospital.

05:06But when I tried again, I got a call from the nurses,

05:09asking where the baby was being taken.

05:11I told them it was around 6 or 7,

05:14but they told me the baby was being taken away from there.

05:22A spark in one of the newborn department's radiant warmers

05:25is believed to have set off a fire in the hospital.

05:28There was no fire safety system in place.

05:31Nurses managed to save seven babies from the ward

05:33through the windows,

05:34but the Bhanarkar's little girl wasn't one of them.

06:25Between 2010 and 2019, 33 major fires were reported in hospitals in India.

06:44Functional fire safety systems were reported in only 19 of those.

06:48In much of the country,

06:49there is not nearly enough periodic testing of safety protocols

06:53nor training of the staff.

07:18There are usually knee-jerk consequences.

07:21In the Bhanarkar case,

07:22the Maharashtra government suspended one civil surgeon

07:25and two district officials for negligence,

07:27terminated the contracts of three doctors and one nurse,

07:30and transferred an additional surgeon.

07:33Hospital staff protested some of the sackings,

07:35feeling like they had been scapegoated.

07:39One of the suspended nurses participated in the protests.

07:46The state government approved a two-crore rupee plan

08:15to implement a fire safety system,

08:17but these improvements come at much too high a price.

08:21The Bhanarkars had only just started to dream about their child's future

08:25before it was violently snatched away from them.

08:28They cannot afford to pay for any more fertility treatments

08:31and they're terrified of experiencing another loss.

08:45Her health is fragile and Hiralal is not always a supportive presence.

08:57Like many of the men in the village who are idled from the lack of work,

09:01he struggles with drinking issues.

09:16When I think about it, it hurts me the most.

09:24We've been through so much, and it hurts us so much.

09:31If it hadn't hurt us so much,

09:33we would have lived a poor life.

09:36That would have been our happiness.

09:38Our children would have been in our arms.

09:40They would have played in our courtyard,

09:42they would have stayed in our house.

09:44That would have been our blessing.

09:52If we hadn't done this,

09:54if we hadn't taken care of them,

09:56we wouldn't have been able to afford anything.

09:58We wouldn't have been able to afford anything.

10:05The Bhanarkars have received five lakh rupees in compensation

10:09and have been advised on the options they now have to become parents.

10:13But for now, they prefer to heal

10:15and don't plan to try for any more children.

10:18Their story is a gutting reminder

10:20of how people who have little have the most to lose.

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